‘Game of Thrones’ Season 4 Casts Struan Rodger in Key Book Role

George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series has always remained well ahead of HBO’s Game of Thrones, as Season 3 covered the first half of the third book in the series. However, the show is finally catching up to the novels, at least where Bran’s storyline is concerned.

(Beware, potential spoilers ahead for non-book readers)

British actor Struan Rodger, perhaps best known to recent TV audiences as the voice for The Face of Boe on Doctor Who, has been cast in a pivotal role in Season 4 as a character introduced in A Dance With Dragons, the fifth novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. On Rodger’s online resume, his role in the series is listed as “Three-Eyed Raven,” meaning Season 4 will see the introduction of Lord Brynden Rivers, better known as Bloodraven. The character is the human form of the three-eyed crow of Bran’s journey.

In the books, Bloodraven was a legitimized bastard of Aegon IV Targaryen, in addition to being the Hand of Aerys I. Bloodraven also memorably served as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch before mysteriously disappearing amid rumors of sorcery. He has been referenced in Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas, set roughly a century before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire. An excerpt from the 2010 novella, “The Mystery Knight,” in which Dunk (Ser Duncan the Tall, friend and companion to Aegon V Targaryen, nicknamed “Egg”) contemplates the reach of Bloodraven’s spies after coming across a septon beheaded for treason:

How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? the riddle ran. A thousand eyes, and one. Some claimed the King’s Hand was a student of the dark arts who could change his face, put on the likeness of a one-eyed dog, even turn into a mist. Packs of gaunt gray wolves hunted down his foes, men said, and carrion crows spied for him and whispered secrets in his ear. Most of the tales were only tales, Dunk did not doubt, but no one could doubt that Bloodraven had informers everywhere

Fans will have to wait to see how Bloodraven factors into Bran’s storyline when Game of Thrones returns for Season 4 in Spring 2014 on HBO.